A critical review of local and world news. This blog originally commented on the Moncton Times and Transcript but has enlarged its scope.

Friday, January 8, 2016

Jan 8: Justin is turning out as I expected.

“P.M. told to
deepen ties to Saudi Arabia.” The advice comes from 'federal
officials'. And if we are being told about it, it's a safe bet it's
because we're being softened up to expect it to happen.

Why should we deepen
ties to Saudi Arabia? Well, it's a powerful state in the Persian
Gulf. It's oil rich, and that would guarantee our energy future.
There's really nothing in this story about people, about their needs,
about the effect this would be likely to have on us. It's really
about the interests of people who have a lot of money. In that
respect, the values in this proposal are so narrowly focussed on
money and to hell with people that it looks like a regular editorial in the Irving press.

Is there any reason
we should not deepen ties to Saudi Arabia. Well, yes….

1. It would, as the
report says, guarantee our energy future. Yeah. Guarantee, in fact,
that we won't have any future at all. It was just weeks ago that we
agreed in Paris that we would cut back severely on greenhouse
emissions. Now, it's suggested that producing greenhouse emissions is
the path of the future. This is all about more oil, not less. And
it's about committing ourselves to it for a long time to come. And
then it won't matter.

The oil industry
wants oil to go on. That's why the west is in the middle east. That's
why premier Gallant is going to endorse fracking “with the
strictest rules in the world.”

This is to hell with
the Paris agreement.

2. We are pledged
NOT to have dealings with countries with bad human rights records.
But, seriously, who gives a damn about human rights? Even in Canada we
have government spies watching us. Even Canadians took part in the
torture of US prisoners. Our neighbour, the U.S., has a dreadful
human rights record – except for its generosity in allowing
nutbars with guns and wearing cowboy hats to threaten to kill police
and soldiers.

Saudi Arabia has,
arguably, the worst human rights record in the world. We are pledged
not to have dealings with such countries. But, hey, boys will be
boys. Right?

Anyway, we've
already broken that pledge with Justin's decision to let the sale of
armoured cars to Saudi Arabia go ahead. ( By the way, I read a
recent report on this which makes it a point of saying they are
'light' armoured cars. That confirms what I had suspected. They would
be useless on a battlefield. These are designed to kill civilians on
city streets. That probably means the king of Saudi Arabia is getting
worried about his domestic popularity.)

Saudi Arabia follows
the most extreme version of Muslim thought. It is the same version
that ISIS follows – extreme application of sharia law, severe
punishments and, something the report didn't mention – the killing
of all people who do not follow their extreme views. That's why
Saudi Arabia carries out severe punishments for even minor crimes. It
can be chopping off of both hands for shoplifting, beheading for
disagreeing with the government, stoning a woman to death for sins
like driving a car…. That's why it's on our hypocritic list of “do
not sell to” nations.

It is now, by the
way, dropping cluster bombs on the starving people of Yemen. These
bombs will still be killing children decades from now. But it must be
okay because the U.S. is supplying them.

But it goes much
beyond Saudi Arabia and ISIS sharing the same, extreme views.

Saudi really is a
part of ISIS. It has been supplying money and weapons to ISIS. Where
do you think a ragged band of religious fanatics got the billions to
buy the fleet of tanker trucks that carries their oil to market?

Why do you think the
U.S. bombers allowed those trucks to pass in daylight in huge convoys through Syria to Turkey? Why do you think the U.S. allowed
Turkey to sell that oil on the open market? The U.S. makes a big
noise about ISIS in the U.S. But it, and Saudi Arabia, are quite
happy to help ISIS in other countries.

There is a part of
the report that deals with how Canada could help with reform in Saudi
Arabia. That part is censored. But it doesn't matter because nothing
is going to reform the kings of Saudi Arabia and their vast families.

In short, this is a
report Canadian big business might have made about our relations with
Germany in September of 1939 – with almost the same arguments, and
with a censored part suggesting Hitler might think of converting to
Judaism.

This report is
utterly without morality and without intelligence. It ignores the
questions of climate change and mass murder. It's really a report
on helping Canadian business make bigger profits – whatever the
human cost might be.

I think the Liberals will support it. And so will the Conservatives.
And I wouldn't be surprised to see an editorial in the Irving press
support. Oh, and the Irving press doesn't seem to have heard that Saudi Arabia, of all countries is in serious debt.

Recently, the Irving
press had a story leading its front page that a woman was living in
dreadful poverty, not far from Moncton. Today, there's a follow-up
story. It only made page A3, though I think it's a more important story.
“Living in poverty not an isolated situation, says social justice
group.”

Part of the story is
quite good. It reminds us that a great many New Brunswickers live in
desperate poverty. But half of the story is about how good strangers
have been to her. This is just ga-ga, feel good crap. And no doubt
we'll soon see a full page of colour photos of assorted goofs holding
up big cheques for her which also display the name of Harry's Toilet
Works and other pious endeavours.

This is not a story
about one person. It's a story about a province in which some people
earn a hundred thousand dollars a day while others try to survive on
$500 a month or less. And they aren't going to get assorted goofs
holding up big cheques for them.

A province that
allows that to happen is not a model of charity. It's a model of smug
hypocrisy. It's a reminder of our indifference to most (almost all)
of those who need help. It's a reminder that some of us have an
unquenchable thirst for money and power. It's a reminder that we keep
electing governments that exist only to serve the greedy and
powerful.

Wake up, New
Brunswick.

The opinion and
commentary pages are mostly pretty soppy stuff, as usual. Norbert has
his knickers in a twist because we're not getting any information on
charges that the police erred in the Oland case.

Tell you what,
Norbert. I don't give a damn about the case of a spoiled rich kid who
has been found guilty of beating his father to death. Leave that one
to the scandal mags at the supermarket. Tell you what, kid. How
about writing something on the firing of Dr. Cleary who was our
highly respected Chief Medical Officer?

For a start, how
about finding out exactly what the requirements of that job are.
That, surely, is something we have a right to know. And maybe
somebody at your paper might have the guts (and brains) to learn
something about what we are spraying on our forests. And, just a
suggestion, let's even consider that the spraying has nothing to do
with this firing.

Close your eyes tight, Norbert, and think really, really hard. In the
very near future, our premier will be making a decision on fracking
in this province. Is it possible that this could be a reason why our
government and, more important, its boss, might be concerned about
Dr. Cleary in the role of Chief Medical Officer?

In the past year,
the provincial government lost $22.4 million to business people who
defaulted on their loans. (Oh, I know, business 'creates' jobs. Get
real. The purpose of business, the only purpose, is to make profits.
It does that by creating as few jobs as possible, and at the lowest
possible wage.)

What creates wealth
is ordinary people who have enough money to buy food and have a place
to live. Oh, big business can create some weath. But only for the
very few at the top.

The $22 million we
have thrown away could have been used to create wealth. But you don't
create it by overfeeding the financially obese. You create it by
making sure nobody has to live on $500 and less a month. You do it by
funding schools so they can produce people who will be of value to
us. You do it by making sure the hungry are fed.

Money spent that
way, all of it, comes back into our economy. Money spent on
billionaires goes into secret bank accounts and slave-labour mines in
third world countries.

This world is
undergoing massive economic changes. Poverty is in a steep rise. The
already wealthy are, every year, getting a bigger piece of the pie.
Wars are being fought, and millions murdered with millions more of
lives destroyed so billionaires can be sure of having enough jam on
their toast. Private business has effectively destroyed democracy in
the U.S., and seriously weakened it in Canada with the finishing
touches being applied in 'free trade' deals. And we, the ones who
should be aware of all this and its meaning, have little sense of
what is happening because the very wealthy control most of our
information about the world.

The Irving press
hasn't noticed the story yet, but Britain has a problem brewing. The
UN has a long list of charges against British soldiers in the Iraq
war. It's a list of very serious war crimes – murder, torture,
rape, robbery, sometimes all four on the same victims. The list has
some 1,500 names, and it's a safe bet that's only the tip of the
iceberg.

The British
government is try to kill this quietly. That's what all governments
do. We are roused into outrage by war crimes against us, but if it's
by us…..big silence. Some will remember the case of the American
lieutenant in Vietnam who led his squad against a quite innocent
village of 700 or so, and led it into killing all of them, including
babies. A reporter got the story, but none of the news media would
touch it.

However, this was
not an Irving press reporter. He forced the government to put the
lieutenant on trial. That made the news media carry it. The
lieutenant was found guilty. (And he suffered a whole night in jail
before he was pardoned by the president.)

Canada has far more
guns that it needs, and too many of the wrong kind – the macho,
pretend I'm a war hero kind. But the world champ is the U.S. with
ninety guns per capita. Canada has about thirty per capita. Guess
which country has the highest rate of gun homicides.

There was a story in
The Guardian about North American football being too dangerous.
Interestingly, it didn't make the sports section of the Irving press.
But I know that to be true of quite a number of popular sports. As a
child, I got to meet many boxers because of an uncle's prominence in
the boxing world. As the years passed, just about every one of them
suffered brain damage and/or serious internal injuries.

Another sport that's
bad news is the brawl called, for some reason, martial arts – the
one in which one fighter kicks another to knock him down, then jumps
on him (or her) to pound his head on the ring floor.

If you want your son and daughter to become pro athletes, keep them
away from the dangerous ones. Sign them up for wrestling with the
WWE. It's quite harmless.

Then there's the big
story that I haven't seen in any paper. The UN is dead in the water.
The organization that was designed to create a new world order is
completely ignored by all world powers. Countries go to war
illegally. Nothing happens. They commit war crimes that kill
millions. Nothing happens. The UN can piddle around the edges with
humanitarian aid – but not much. The wealthy of this world don't
spend much on humanitarian aid. It's more important to spend money on
useful things – like corrupt arms industries.

What is happening is
a takeover of the world by the wealthiest capitalists. What has
happened in the U.S. and what is happening in Canada (and Russia and
China) who 'compete' with each other. Competing means killing and
starving without getting their own hands dirty. They use national
'patriots' for that part.

This article pretty
much sums it up. (It also uses the word 'fascism' in its correct
meaning.)

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About Me

born into poverty in Montreal. (1933 was a bad year to be born.) Kicked out of school in grade 11. Became factory hand, office boy.
Did a general BA, mostly at night at Sir George Williams University, and partly while a youth worker for YMCA, camps, etc. Then teacher training at McGill.
Taught gradea 7 to 11 for six years. Loved it.
Quit to do MA at Acadia, then PhD (History) at Queen's.
Taught history three years at UPEI, then some 35 years at Concordia U in Montreal.
Loved the teaching. Thought the profs had more pompous and useless asses among then than is really desirable outside a zoo.
work experience:
factory, office,social group work, office,camp director, teacher.
Radio - c. 3000 broadcasts, mostly current events.
TV - many hundred appearances, mostly commentaries.
Film - some writing, advising, voice-overs.
Writing - no count, some hundreds. Some academic, but mostly for popular market, and ranging from short stories to stories to newspaper and magazine columns to history books.
professional speaker - close to 2000.
Awards for the above? yep